Target
by Aiko Isari
Summary: Hunters. AU. She'd had practice trapping so many souls. It was only a matter of time that she would go after living things.


**_A/N:_** Hey! So, I haven't really written Airu that much, but I fell asleep with the idea of her being a really subtle shinigami within a family of shinigami and Yuu being someone who sees her one night. I don't know if I'm going to do anything else with this. You guys tell me what you think and I'll see!

Challenge: Jigsaw Puzzle Challenge (DFC) xros wars 15- Airu Suzaki.

Warnings: allusions to murder. No canon is spoiled!

* * *

This evening is the dark moon.

It's perfect.

She pauses, waits. She's more patient with the dead than the living. The dead have unlimited time. The living are always on the clock. She waits. If she hadn't spent years training at stealth (which is entirely pointless since almost no one can see her in the first place), she'd have fallen into the bushes by now.

Her eyes watch the sky, looking for the inevitable rain of white and blue. The trap is on the other side of the park. They can't know she's here.

Hollows are stupid. That doesn't mean they can't sense anything.

She settles in a more relaxed seating position. It will probably be another long, boring hour. She swings her legs back and forth. Have her parents finished dinner yet? Has her brother tried cracking the lock on her door again?

Are they worried she won't come home?

How silly. The dead are no threat to her.

She waits and waits.

No one would expect her to be patient. They see her as nothing but noise, red noise they can drown out and ignore because she's stupidly loud and they don't see what's behind it.

"You could fall from there," says a voice, soft as the non-moving wind.

Her fingers curl more tightly into the branch to keep from falling. She looks down, blonde ringlets bouncing. "I could," she says, voice acidic. One eye still looks at the sky, pink and sulky. She hates being distracted. "But I won't."

The other is a human, a boy. He's only half a meter away. It's a good thing she left her body at home, otherwise he would probably see it. His hair is barely darker than hers. His eyes are bright, but duller than the thin veil of reiatsu, which could send a lesser warrior blind.

"Why not?" he asks. It's genuine curiosity, not derision. It's weird. Doesn't he have a life?

She shrugs at him. "Practice." Airu turns away. It's easy to be cold when on the job, especially since she is rattled by the fact that he can see her. He's not panicking. Maybe he hasn't noticed the black, a color she hates but knows it hides the bloodstains. Maybe she hasn't noticed the odd sandals nobody wears without religion at their back. Maybe he can't see the sword resting in her lap. Maybe he thinks it's a toy, and she is just a kid in a really elaborate game. That would be the easiest. That will cause him to be bored and go away, so she can focus.

She has to meet quota somehow.

She's not a combatant. She's a trickster. She can't just make a cut in the throat and have it be the end.

He laughs. The sound still isn't condescending. She doesn't get it, get him. She wants to. Why?

 _He has a cute face_.

Is she really going to think about that right now?

"I know that," he says. "You wouldn't be up there if you didn't practice. It's still dangerous."

"So?"

He blinks. "So… be careful?"

Airu wants to look at him. She wants to drink his face in because normally the living just aren't all that exciting, or at least polite. Her friends know better. Maybe she's found a fly.

She can't look. It's the dark of the moon. "Okay."

It's an agreement that she's probably not going to follow, but if it will shut him up and keep him away, it should be fine to lie.

He beams, like he's genuinely happy. Then a voice calls from a distance away. "Yuu!" He turns, and with a wave that seems rather cheeky, hurries away. She peeks an eye to look, and sees him speaking to an older boy. He seems apologetic, but she doubts it. The other doesn't even seem to care either.

Airu licks her lips, returns to watching the sky. The white-blue rain has begun to fall. The souls fall into the pretty net she's weaved with the smell of vice and no forgiveness and loved ones. It's taken her forever to perfect it.

Now that she has, it's not as interesting.

That human was interesting, vulnerable.

Her mother had warned her not to play with the living. Living is fragile and finite. A soul can take a better hit.

Now, Airu doesn't care. If a couple of humans are so vulnerable, why can't she have a little fun?

She'll start with him.

Her blade begins to vibrate, thrumming sweetly.

After the quota, of course.


End file.
